The present invention relates to a form editing method, apparatus and a storage medium storing a computer-readable program for editing, e.g., form data to be overlaid on field data and the like.
Conventionally, documents have been frequently used as particulars in contracts and transactions. Ruled lines and graphic patterns are printed in advance in accordance with types of contracts in transactions in insurance companies and financial institutions. At the time of each contract, customer information is printed, e.g. using a printer, by a preprint scheme. In the financial circles having a large number of types of products such as life and nonlife insurances, the number of types of documents to be printed out and prepared in advance increases.
In recent years, a document creation system for creating a document by printing rules lines and a trade mark on a blank sheet together with data to be filled have been put into practice. This saves the cost required for printing and preparing documents in advance. Even if the forms of the documents are updated, old documents need not be wasted.
A document printing/browsing system uses a form data file describing the form (form information) of a document and a field data file describing customer data to be filled in the blanks of a document. The form information is prepared for each type of document and includes the following three elements. They are first, graphic information such as ruled lines, frames, and trade marks; second, fixed character information such as product names, a list of shop addresses, and provisions; and third, field information for defining an area in which data supplied from a data file is overlaid, and the output attribute of the area.
The form information is created by an editing application called a form editor. The form editor has a graphic drawing function, character string input function, and attribute setting function so as to allow the user to efficiently edit the above three elements.
The field data is a data string of numerical values and character strings in an order of fields defined by the form information. The field data is generally a text in which data are delimited by commas. The number of fields defined in sheets of a document is the number of data of one record and must be appropriately prepared. The fields defined in one document have serial numbers, which play a role as the field names for distinguishing the fields from each other.
The field data are filled in the fields from the beginning of a file in the order of serial numbers. When a document is made up of a plurality of pages, the serial numbers are assigned to all the fields of each page.
The documents must often be updated in accordance with product lines, social environment, and changes in laws. For example, even minor changes such as changes in addresses and trade marks require changes in form information files. Although cost required to update the files is lower than that of the preprint scheme, the number of form information files to be prepared increases depending on the industries having a variety of products. It is not easy to perform identical update jobs to all the form information files. In update jobs, operators may make mistakes and forget updating the files.
To eliminate the above drawback, there has been proposed a method of preparing a file called a component form and referring to this form from a form information file to construct one form. The component form file contains the three elements as in the form information file and can singly be used as a form information file. Form information using this component form is called composite form information. A software tool called a composite form editor for editing composite form information is also proposed.
The component form can be shared by a plurality of form information files. For example, when a component form describing a company badge is prepared, a document that should contain the company badge is referred to from the form information file containing the company badge. Even if the company badge is changed, only one component form is updated to allow changes in all the documents.
In the form information using a plurality of component forms (to be referred to as composite form information hereinafter), component forms have an ordinal relationship (order). The component forms have a registration or add order as their basic order. The order of the component forms may be changed. When a component form is deleted, a component form defined next takes the place of the deleted component form. No order changes in updating component forms.
The use of component forms facilitates document management, but care must be taken for creating field data. Data loaded from the start of a field data file in browsing and printing a document are filled in the fields in the order of component forms. The user must grasp the order of component forms and create a field data file so as to properly load the component forms.
In a conventional composite form editor, the user can only see the ordinal relationship between the component forms. This form editor does not have a function of displaying fields defined in each component. Resultingly, a plurality of form editors must be activated to display a list of fields set in a page in which a plurality of component forms are registered. The user loads the component forms to the plurality of activated form editors, arranges the editor windows in the order of component forms grasped by the user, and keeps displaying the list of fields contained in each component form. The conventional composite form editor does not provide a method of displaying a list defining the relationship between the order of component forms and the order of fields defined in the components. The user must prepare the list defining the relationship.
A heavy load is imposed on the user in creating field data. The field data are filled in the fields in accordance with the order of component forms related to the composite form information. In a list of fields of each component form, the serial numbers are assigned from the first field in each component form. For this reason, in order to know, from the start of a page, the ordinal number of a field of a component form located at the end of the list, the user must count fields up to the field of the component form located at the end of the list.
Assume that the user who traces the created field data wants to know the type and format of 50th data from the start of a given page. Since the given page is related to a plurality of component forms, the user must count the fields in each component form in the related order and trace the fields up to the 50th field. That is, the user must be conscious of the order of component forms while remembering the current field count and can finally find the target 50th field.
When the conventional composite form editor or form editor is used, field data and form information fields have a one-to-one correspondence from the start field of the start component form to the end field of the end component form of a composite form in output operation. The user, however, cannot know this correspondence.
Since the identifiers of the fields are displayed in the display contents of the component form, the user can easily find the corresponding field in the list of fields. It is, however, cumbersome and time-consuming to find the relationship between a specific field displayed in the list of fields and a corresponding field in the component form. This job may be difficult when a component form has a large number of fields.